We’re encouraging women to attend and depute at the upcoming Community Development and Recreation Committee on the state of the city’s Access without Fear policies for undocumented, non-status, and precarious status residents of Toronto. It takes place on January 31st, 2013 at 9:00 am in Committee Room 1 at City Hall. If you would like to depute, please email smack@tao.ca with your name, title and organization name if applicable.
Many community groups in the city, including Commitment to Community, Toronto Women City Alliance, Community Recreation For All and Solidarity City Now campaign have done a lot of organizing, deputing and work around universal access to community recreation.
What follows is a draft recommendation, prepared by Solidarity Across Borders.
Draft Recommendations for Community Development and Recreation Community
NOTE: We use the term “Access Without Fear” to connote policies which ensure that people receive services regardless of their immigration status, and further that when a worker becomes aware of a person’s status, the worker does not communicate with Immigration Enforcement. This term is used as opposed to “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” as many agencies and/or city offices need to ask questions related to status in order to perform their services.
We also use the term “undocumented people” to mirror the City Staff report. We intend this term to encompass non-status people, people with precarious immigration status (i.e. Temporary Foreign Workers) and people without full documentation of their immigration status as well as people without any documentation of their immigration status.
1) Some orgs and services – like Toronto Community Housing, Ontario Works or say a jointly funded City of Toronto project on youth and arts, Ontario Works etc. don’t follow a Access Without Fear policy, i.e. they ask for immigration status up front and refuse services on the basis of them.
So we recommend:
An internal audit with community consultation of all city funded services (including agencies that receive city funding) and a report be made on which of those services are asking for immigration status related information as part of their registration processes or when providing services.
(2) A large amount of services that do have Access without Fear policies continue to be unaware or unwilling to provide services. Either front line staff don’t know about the policy or management doesn’t seem to encourage it. This from 2012 is quite explicit (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/catholic-trustee-slams-undocumented-student-in-e-mail/article584306/) but is actually a version of the experience many people face.
So we recommend:
A. That organizations implement the Access Without Fear policy by communicating in a clear and accessible format (i.e. posters) at sites of service provision so that Torontonians without immigration papers trying to access services would be assured that their information is safe.
B. That sensitivity training for front line staff and managers with a clear policy on repercussions and accountability if service is reduced is provided.
C. That the city establish a clear and accessible review and complaints process with community consultation to address gaps in implementation of the policy.
D. That the city require a version of an Access Without Fear policy be in place as a condition of receiving city funding.
E. That the city make public these advances so that undocumented people are aware of them.
(3) There are a number of issues that are provincial and federal. Particularly on services that the city is providing – i.e. Ontario Works and Community Housing.
So we recommend:
A. That the City advocate to the Province that it be allowed to implement its Access Without Fear policies and ensure that healthcare, policing, community housing, ODSP and Ontario Works are available to undocumented residents.
B. That the City advocate to the Federal government to implement a full and accessible regularization program for all residents of the City of Toronto and all of Canada.
Further reading:
Toronto City Hall commissioned this report on undocumented residents recently:
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2012/cd/bgrd/backgroundfile-51796.pdf
